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Building cellular self-organizing system (CSO): a behavior regulation based approach

BUILDING CELLULAR SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEM (CSO):
A BEHAVIOR REGULATION BASED APPROACH
by
Chang Chen
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERISITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(MECHANICAL ENGINEERING)
May 2012
Copyright 2012 Chang Chen

Complexity of a system grows as more functionality is required by customers and more unintended component interactions are added to the system by designers as they make design decisions. The increasing level of both intended and unintended complexity of systems has made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for designers to ensure reliability of, and instill adaptability into, their designed systems. As demands for adaptive systems increase in areas such as space and ocean exploration and rescue and military missions, how to guarantee reliability and increase flexibility and/or adaptability of complex engineered systems is a major challenge. While research in biological systems has advanced our understanding of how these systems have been designed and developed and revealed their fundamental properties of adaptation through morphogenesis, there has been little research in exploiting the biological design process for the development of engineered flexible and/or adaptive systems. A new engineering approach is needed that can overcome the limitations of conventional design methods by applying the concepts and processes found in the development of biological systems. ❧ In this dissertation, we develop a framework for understanding the limitations of the conventional design process for designing complex adaptive systems. Based on the previous work on mechanical cell (mCell) based system formation, we propose a novel biology inspired system representation called Behavior-based design DNA (B-dDNA) for the development and operation of our Cellular Self-organizing Systems, or CSO systems for short. Based on the B-dDNA representation, a mechanism called Field driven Behavioral Regulation (FBR) is proposed that implements and synthesizes system Designing, Formation, Operation, and Adaptation processes. FBR of a CSO system is a mathematical and selection model that is shared by all mCells and specifies cellular behaviors corresponding to functional, system level, operational and adaptation requirements. Our research results have demonstrated the feasibility and advantages of the B-dDNA representation and FBR based mechanisms. Two case studies along with more detailed computer simulations are provided to demonstrate the power of B-dDNA and FBR for designing and developing complex engineered adaptive systems that possess inherent capabilities to cope with increasing level of system complexities and to exhibit high level flexibility/adaptability in response to both task and environmental changes that occur in mission situations.

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BUILDING CELLULAR SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEM (CSO):
A BEHAVIOR REGULATION BASED APPROACH
by
Chang Chen
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERISITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(MECHANICAL ENGINEERING)
May 2012
Copyright 2012 Chang Chen